Nerdelika’s Reviews > The Ocean at the End of the Lane > Status Update

You don’t pass or fail at being a person, dear.

‘Nothing’s ever the same,’ she said. ‘Be it a second later or a hundred years. It’s always churning and roiling. And people change as much as oceans.’

Grown-ups don’t look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they’re big and thoughtless and they always know what they’re doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. The truthis, there aren’t any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.’ She thought for a moment. Then she smiled. ‘Except for Granny, of course.’

I liked myths. They weren’t adult stories and they weren’t children’s stories. They were better than that. They just were.
Adult stories never made sense, and they were so slow to start. They made me feel like there were secrets, masonic, mythic secrets, to adulthood. Why didn’t adults want to read about Narnia, about secret islands and smugglers and dangerous fairies?